Separation Saturday sure lived up to its name when it came to the Big 12, as No. 15 Oklahoma stayed undefeated on the season with a 44-24 home win against No. 23 West Virginia.
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These confounding moments saw Tony Gibson’s unit allow 24 first-half points to Oklahoma, which was one more point than West Virginia (3-1, 0-1) had ceded throughout its first three games.
West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen placed the blame for the Mountaineers’ 44-24 loss to the Oklahoma Sooners exclusively on himself in his post-game press conference. Rudolph’s three-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Sheperd gave the Cowboys the lead, but after an earlier blocked extra point, were only up five. He has caught 12 passes for 329 yards and scored four touchdowns.
Coming into the weekend, West Virginia had been dominating game pace and scoring 43.3 points per game as a borderline top-10 offense.
Riley is plenty familiar with Holgorsen, serving first as a quarterback and then as an assistant coach at Texas Tech when Holgorsen was coaching there in the early 2000s.
Two OU possessions later, the Sooners wanted more paydirt.
West Virginia tried to keep up, but Striker stripped Howard, and Oklahoma’s Evans scooped it up and ran it back for a touchdown to put the Sooners ahead by 17 with just under 10 minutes to play.
“We’re trying to be as multiple as we can and show different fronts and give people more to defend”, he noted. The Mountaineers haven’t turned the ball over much this year (just two total) and they are lethal in both the passing and rushing game.
Penalties, turnovers, and overthrown passes plagued West Virginia all afternoon.
Might that change Saturday at home against West Virginia? There always seems to be one team that spoils the season for the Big 12’s best shot at the BCS/College Football Playoff. Oklahoma cornerback Zach Sanchez believes the Sooners will start forcing turnovers soon. That schedule is very soft and the first road game, at Oklahoma, should tell us whether or not West Virginia is going to be any good this season.
It also should be noted that the Mountaineers have shut out their 2015 opponents in the first half, not allowing a single tally in their three wins to start the season. “Looking back at it a year ago, we held TCU and Kansas State to well below their average number, as well”.
“It’s not tough for me, ” he said. “Our receiving core has been better than advertised and Shelton Gibson’s height will definitely play a factor against the shorter kids on Stoops’ squad”. Dating back to last season, we’ve seen Alabama’s defense struggle against dynamic offenses. In any case, the freaky plan – this is excessively straightforward, yet it’s basically an extremely forceful adaptation of nickel barrier, constantly – well, in the event that you know anything about West Virginia’s later past and the Big 12’s present cosmetics … it just fits. Slot receiver Sterling Shepard leads the pack with 18 grabs for 286 yards and a couple of scores.
It was that day that Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops learned he could depend on Perine as a workhorse.
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There were a lot of standout players in this contest, but Jordan Thomas and Eric Striker really set the tone throughout the game.
